The 1971 Long Track World Final, 1971 Jawa Long Track Racing Motorcycle, Frame no. 136 Engine no. P 500 126

Important Collectors' Motorcycles and Spares
The 1971 Long Track World Final
1971 Jawa Long Track Racing Motorcycle
Frame no. 136
Engine no. P 500 126
Following Ivan's win at the Speedway European Championship Final in 1966, his raised profile led to increasing approaches from Continental promoters. 'From 1967, I was fitting in additional meetings on the Continent, usually on the 1,000-metre tracks, and sampling grass, sand and shale in a whole lot of new locations which sometimes were challenging and occasionally quite exotic,' he recalled in his autobiography, 'The Will to Win'.

Ivan's first individual continental meeting was the 1967 'Golden Key' in Bremen, a speedway event he would win six times in a row from 1968 to 1973. 'Soon there were invitations to do a couple of grass tracks and long tracks which meant buying a long track bike. After a meeting at Wimbledon I stayed overnight with Sid and Renee Hone and went to Alf Hagon's shop at 350 Leyton High Road and bought one of his Hagon sand racers. I had a spare JAP engine and put that in it.

'Long track appealed to me since the first time at Easter 1960 when I saw the mile track at Port Pirie. I could not wait to get on my bike and go fast down those long straights. Although the long track is not as spectacular to watch for spectators, from a riding point of view it is definitely more exciting. And money-wise, it made a lot of sense to do more meetings.'

For 1971, the FIM elevated the premier long track championship from European to World status. Ivan had twice qualified for the European final but had not ridden in either. He made it to the first ever Long Track World Final only for his factory Jawa (the machine offered here) to give trouble, the motor blowing in one of the heats. Ivan borrowed Don Godden's fast and reliable JAP for the decider, which he won, beating German competitor Manfred Poschenreider into second place with Sweden's Runo Wedin third. The blown engine from that meeting was returned to the Jawa factory; its whereabouts are not known.

In stock form the factory Jawa long tracker was excessively heavy, weighing around 105kg. After removing the standard steel fuel tank, steel mudguards, and steel wheel rims, and fitting a smaller seat, Ivan and his team got the weight down to around 85kg, a useful decrease. This machine was restored by Ivan in his Australian workshop using the spare engine from the 1972 World Long Track Final bike.